Later, more expensive still better than never on Pennsylvania roads

The Pennsylvania General Assembly finally got its act together late last week and gave final approval to some desperately needed investment in the state’s road, bridge and public transit systems.

A multi-pronged infrastructure funding plan was sent for Gov. Tom Corbett’s signature late Thursday, after traveling a road to passage last week almost as bumpy as the average state highway.

The House debated and rejected the plan twice on Monday, but then approved it on Tuesday. The Senate quickly approved it Wednesday, sending it back to the House for a final day-long wrangle Thursday in the waning moments of the current legislative session. Better late than never, we suppose, but this should have been a slam dunk.

It’s been nearly two decades since the state generated significant revenue for roads by raising its gasoline tax. Meanwhile, our transportation systems suffered hugely and taxpayers coasted, benefiting from static costs while the inevitable reckoning loomed large and ever more expensive. Governance — specifically safe and serviceable roads — costs big money, and we can’t help but think that much of the outcry we heard last week over the cost of the legislation could have been muted had lawmakers done their job in this respect during the previous 17 years.

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The toll on drivers and roads-based businesses will be significant. The bill gradually ramps up investment in roads by $2.4 billion a year by 2017-18. Some of the money would come from large increases in vehicle fees and fines, but most of it would come from uncapping the oil company franchise tax, leading to gradual increase in gas prices by 28 cents per gallon over five years.

The bill has come due, and now we’re going to pay. The price would have been less steep, given the nature of inflation, had something been done sooner.

Even so, if anything is worth higher fees and taxes, it’s safe, efficient roads and bridges, a government service most of us use daily. And for every year nothing is done, the maintenance backlog and overall cost to address simply continues to increase.

No one like to raise taxes, and no one likes to pay them. But the alternative is increased fuel and vehicle repairs costs, a rapidly expanding list of roads and bridges closed to certain kinds of traffic due to safety reasons and, in a truly worse case scenario, a catastrophe on the order of what happened in August 2007, when the Interstate 35 bridge over the Mississippi River in Minneapolis collapsed and killed 13 people.

Those are the ultimate stakes when opportunistic lawmakers tell selfish taxpayers what they want to hear (“No tax hikes ever!”) for decades, for the sake of winning elections.

The reality is that bills must be paid. At least we’ll get some smooth and safe roads out of the bargain.